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Boston College Continuing Education Encore Events Boston College SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AND MINISTRY Continuing Education Encore Events Transcript of “Clare of Assisi: From Historical Figure to Saintly Model” presented on October 11, 2017 by Catherine M. Mooney Dr. Jane Regan: And now, it's my great pleasure to introduce our presenter. My good colleague, Catherine M. Mooney, currently serves as associate professor of Church history here at Boston College in the School of Theology and Ministry. And that's a role that she has had since 2001 beginning with Weston Jesuit School of Theology. She holds the M.T.S. degree from Harvard Divinity School, and a master's degree and a Ph.D. from Yale University in medieval history. Previously, Professor Mooney served as visiting scholar and coordinator of the Gender Studies graduate program at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and spent many years teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University. She also served as visiting professor of Franciscan Studies for a year at the Franciscan Institute at in St. Bonaventure, New York. Cathy's written many book chapters and articles and book reviews. She's the editor of a collection of essays which include two of her own, entitled Gendered Voices, Medieval Saints and their Interpreters. She's also the author of two books, the biography of Philippine Duchesne: A Woman with the Poor and one of the first saints of American frontier, and the newly-published book of tonight's topic, Clare of Assisi and the 13th Century Church: Religious Women, Rules, and Resistance. In addition to lecturing in scholarly and pastoral venues, Dr. Mooney is active in human rights efforts. Since 1990, she has served on the board of the Ignacio Martin-Baro Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights, named after one of the Jesuits who had been killed in El Salvador, murdered in El Salvador in 1989. She regularly circulates news to a list of thousands of followers from the ongoing struggle for justice of the Wichi Amerindians of northern Argentina whom she met when working as a pastoral and human rights advocate during Argentina's military dictatorship and Dirty War. So obviously, Cathy is a person of wide interests and specialization and committed to the pastoral work of international justice. And so we're pleased to have her on our faculty and happy to be welcome here. Just keep in mind, she's on sabbatical this year and so she's coming to us out of sabbatical, which is even more generous. So let's welcome Cathy. [APPLAUSE] Dr. Catherine Mooney: Thank you, Jane, for that very generous introduction. By the way, I left a check in your mailbox. [LAUGHTER] It's stunning to consider that the 13th century figure—that moved and it shouldn't have. It's stunning to consider that the 13th century figure Clare of Assisi still draws the attention of people like you all here tonight and also of many scholars. People interested in Franciscan life, in the history of the Church, in the history of religious women, et cetera. As I speak tonight, eight centuries after Clare 1 Clare of Assisi: From Historical Figure to Saintly Model www.bc.edu/encore Boston College was alive, we are in the midst of the most intense and [INAUDIBLE] scholarship about Clare that I think has ever taken place. This Renaissance took off around 1992 and 1993 when the 800-year anniversary of her birth was being celebrated, and it continues unabated today. In discussing Clare's life tonight in a roughly chronological fashion, I plan to interweave some traditional story lines that have marked the contours of her life with new discoveries and insights, some of which add depth to these traditional depictions and others of which challenge or even upend these earlier understandings. This historical Clare is also fascinating to juxtapose with Saint Clare, the woman who was idealized in text and art after her death. Now Clare was born in 1193 in the upper section of Assisi where the wealthier families resided. Like many people in the Assisi region, she found the charismatic Francis of Assisi compelling, even captivating. Let me begin this exploration of Clare with a simple, even trivial sounding question. Did Clare seek Francis out or did Francis seek Clare out? This is one of the many disjunctures we find in literature about Clare. An important legend, or saint's life, that was composed about Clare shortly after her death states that Clare sought Francis out. It wouldn't be surprising. He was becoming rather well- known, she was a young girl still residing at home, and was, well, somewhat known but not so much. For many years, this legend served as one of the principal sources for our knowledge about Clare. Composed by a Franciscan friar, it exists as one of the principal sources today. It drew many of its facts from the testimony of witnesses who had been interrogated for Clare's canonization shortly after she died. The canonization process was just becoming formalized a few generations, maybe even just one generation before Clare died. Similar to canonization processes today, it called for the examination of witnesses who knew the candidate so they could consider that in their judgment about sanctity. The witnesses were interrogated, their answers were recorded, they were passed on to prelates in the Roman Curia, today rather sloppily referred to as the Vatican, and then later they were used as notes by anyone who wanted to put together an organized biography about the saints. Often, quite often, these notes were then discarded. For centuries, it was assumed that “The Acts,” as these notes are known, had suffered a similar fate. Of course, I hasten to point out that scholars weren't looking very hard for these Acts or for many other texts about Clare. She was, to some extent still today is, a moon that reflected the light of the more important and brilliant sun, Francis of Assisi. It was only in the early 20th century that scholars discovered a copy of The Acts. It included the testimonies of 21 people, including 16 sisters who lived with Clare, some for three or four decades. One of the witnesses was Clare's younger sister, Beatrix, and Beatrix, who you might think knew something about Clare's youth, told the canonization commissioners questioning her that Francis had repeatedly sought Clare out. Because he had heard of her sanctity, he wanted to preach to her and convert her over to his vision of religious life. Who sought out whom? It's a small point but it illustrates a greater point. The hagiographer—that's the term we use for authors of saints' lives—the hagiographer who wrote Clare's life seems to have intentionally reframed what Beatrix said to preserve Francis's status as the greater saint, the one whom all sought out. Of course, it's possible he had been persuaded that Beatrix was wrong. But this is what hagiographers do. At the same time, they want to convey what we would call “reliable evidence” about their subject, 2 Clare of Assisi: From Historical Figure to Saintly Model www.bc.edu/encore Boston College they also want to spruce them up. So hagiographers are not beyond embellishing, adapting, or even inventing facts to make their saint look more like a saint. Their principal aim is not to convey historical evidence about their subject, but to convey moral truths that will inspire their listeners and readers. However it happened, once Clare had indeed been persuaded by Francis's message of living poorly and humbly, the two hatched a plan that she would flee from her family's home one night. The sisters who testified said that Clare met Francis at a little church that he loved and often stayed at, the Porziuncola, a church that still exists today, albeit, it has been encased within a larger church to protect it from the weather. They reported that Francis then tonsured Clare, cutting her hair in a ritual act that signified her commitment to religious life. The legend author added, probably to fend off accusations of impropriety, that Clare met not only Francis, but also his friars. And you'll note that the previous slide had showed Clare being accompanied by several female and one male guardian, although the earliest sources state that she was accompanied by one companion. Soon thereafter, Clare took up residence in San Damiano, a little church that Francis had been repairing outside the walled town of Assisi, here pictured in a later and expanded architectural configuration. The traditional narrative about Clare has it that with that move to San Damiano, Francis, together with Clare, founded the religious order that would become known in her lifetime as the Order of San Damiano, or today, the Order of Saint Clare, also referred to as the Poor Clares. This well-known fact—notice my air quotes—about the historical Clare, however, has now been seriously challenged by scholars—and I am among them—who are consulting not only The Acts and the legend in Clare's own writings, but also dozens of lesser known texts, especially letters written by various popes and prelates during Clare's lifetime. These texts indicate that Francis and Clare founded the single religious House of San Damiano, rather than an order. Now, its worth noting that our understanding of a religious order today—that is, a network of religious houses that has a unified juridical structure—was just coming into being a few generations before Clare's life. The large majority of monasteries and other types of religious houses were independent of each other.
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